A capped and aproned maid, with a martyred expression, had twice
sounded the dinner-bell in the stately halls of Costello, before any
member of the family saw fit to respond to it.

Then they all came at once, with a sudden pounding of young feet on
the stairs, an uproar of young voices, and much banging of doors.
Jim and Danny, twins of fourteen, to whom their mother was wont
proudly to allude as "the top o' the line," violently left their own
sanctum on the fourth floor, and coasted down such banisters as lay
between that and the dining-room. Teresa, an angel-faced twelve-
year-old in a blue frock, shut 'The Wide, Wide World' with a sigh,
and climbed down from the window-seat in the hall.

Teresa's pious mother, in moments of exultation, loved to compare
and commend her offspring to such of the saints and martyrs as their
youthful virtues suggested. And Teresa at twelve had, as it were,
graduated from the little saints, Agnes and Rose and Cecilia, and
was now compared, in her mother's secret heart, to the gracious
Queen of all the Saints. "As she was when a little girl," Mrs.
Costello would add, to herself, to excuse any undue boldness in the
thought.

And indeed, Teresa, as she was to-night, her blue eyes still clouded
with Ellen Montgomery's sorrows, her curls tumbled about her hot
cheeks, would have made a pretty foil in a picture of old Saint
Anne.

But this story is about Alanna of the black eyes, the eight years,
the large irregular mouth, the large irregular freckles.

Alanna was outrunning lazy little Leo--her senior, but not her match
at anything--on their way to the dining-room. She was rendering
desperate the two smaller boys, Frank X., Jr., and John Henry Newman
Costello, who staggered hopelessly in her wake. They were all
hungry, clean, and good-natured, and Alanna's voice led the other
voices, even as her feet, in twinkling patent leather, led their
feet.

Following the children came their mother, fastening the rich silk
and lace at her wrists as she came. Her handsome kindly face and her
big shapely hands were still moist and glowing from soap and warm
water, and the shining rings of black hair at her temples were
moist, too.

"This is all my doin', Dad," said she, comfortably, as she and her
flock entered the dining-room. "Put the soup on, Alma. I'm the one
that was goin' to be prompt at dinner, too!" she added, with a
superintending glance for all the children, as she tied on little
John's napkin.

F.X. Costello, Senior, undertaker by profession, and mayor by an
immense majority, was already at the head of the table.

"Late, eh, Mommie?" said he, good-naturedly. He threw his newspaper
on the floor, cast a householder's critical glance at the lights and
the fire, and pushed his neatly placed knives and forks to right and
left carelessly with both his fat hands.

The room was brilliantly lighted and warm. A great fire roared in
the old-fashioned black marble grate, and electric lights blazed
everywhere. Everything in the room, and in the house, was costly,
comfortable, incongruous, and hideous. The Costellos were very rich,
and had been very poor; and certain people were fond of telling of
the queer, ridiculous things they did, in trying to spend their
money. But they were very happy, and thought their immense, ugly
house was the finest in the city, or in the world.

"Well, an' what's the news on the Rialter?" said the head of the
house now, busy with his soup.

"You'll have the laugh on me, Dad," his wife assured him, placidly.
"After all my sayin' that nothing'd take me to Father Crowley's
meetin'!"

"Oh, that was it?" said the mayor. "What's he goin' to have,--a
concert?"

"--and a fair too!" supplemented Mrs. Costello. There was an
interval devoted on her part to various bibs and trays, and a low
aside to the waitress. Then she went on: "As you know, I went,
meanin' to beg off. On account of baby bein' so little, and Leo's
cough, and the paperers bein' upstairs,--and all! I thought I'd just
make a donation, and let it go at that. But the ladies all kind of
hung back--there was very few there--and I got talkin'--"

"Well,'tis but our dooty, after all," said the mayor, nodding
approval.

"That's all, Frank. Well! So finally Mrs. Kiljohn took the coffee,
and the Lemmon girls took the grab-bag. The Guild will look out for
the concert, and I took one fancy-work booth, and of course the
Children of Mary'll have the other, just like they always do."

"You can help me, dovey," said her mother, absently. "I'm not goin'
to work as I did for Saint Patrick's Bazaar, Dad, and I said so!
Mrs. O'Connell and Mrs. King said they'd do all the work, if I'd
just be the nominal head. Mary Murray will do us some pillers--
leather--with Gibsons and Indians on them. And I'll have Lizzie
Bayne up here for a month, makin' me aprons and little Jappy
wrappers, and so on."

She paused over the cutlets and the chicken pie, which she had been
helping with an amazing attention to personal preference. The young
Costellos chafed at the delay, but their mother's fine eyes saw them
not.

"Kelley & Moffat ought to let me have materials at half price," she
reflected aloud. "My bill's two or three hundred a month!"

"You always say that you're not going to do a thing, and then get in
and make more than any other booth!" said Dan, proudly.

"Oh, not this year, I won't," his mother assured him. But in her
heart she knew she would.

"Aren't you glad it's fancy-work?" said Teresa. "It doesn't get all
sloppy and mussy like ice-cream, does it, mother?"

"Never mind, baby," said Mrs. Costello, hurriedly. "Mother'll find
you something to do. There now! How'd you like to have a raffle book
on something,--a chair or a piller? And you could get all the names
yourself, and keep the money in a little bag--"

"Oh, my! I wish I could!" said Jim, artfully. "Think of the last
night, when the drawing comes! You'll have the fun of looking up the
winning number in your book, and calling it out, in the hall."

"And then, from the pulpit, when the returns are all in,"
contributed Dan, warmly, "Father Crowley will read out your name,--
With Mrs. Frank Costello's booth--raffle of sofa cushion, by Miss
Alanna Costello, twenty-six dollars and thirty-five cents!"

"Oo--would he, Dad?" said Alanna, won to smiles and dimples by this
charming prospect.

"Of course he would!" said her father. "Now go back to your seat,
Machree, and eat your dinner. When Mommer takes you and Tess to the
matinee to-morrow, ask her to bring you in to me first, and you and
I'll step over to Paul's, and pick out a table or a couch, or
something. Eh, Mommie?"

"And what do you say?" said that lady to Alanna, as the radiant
little girl went back to her chair.

Whereupon Alanna breathed a bashful "Thank you, Dad," into the
ruffled yoke of her frock, and the matter was settled.

The next day she trotted beside her father to Paul's big furniture
store, and after long hesitation selected a little desk of shining
brass and dull oak.

"Now," said her father, when they were back in his office, and
Teresa and Mrs. Costello were eager for the matinee, "here's your
book of numbers, Alanna. And here, I'll tie a pencil and a string to
it. Don't lose it. I've given you two hundred numbers at a quarter
each, and mind the minute any one pays for one, you put their name
down on the same line!"

"Sonow!" said her mother, with a little nod of encouragement and
warning. "Put it right in your muff, lovey. Don't lose it. Dan or
Jim will help you count your money, and keep things straight."

"And to begin with, we'll all take a chance!" said the mayor,
bringing his fat palm, full of silver, up from his pocket. "How old
are you, Mommie?"

"I'm thirty-seven,--all but, as well you know, Frank!" said his
wife, promptly.

"Thirty-sixand thirty-seven for you, then!" He wrote her name
opposite both numbers. "And here's the mayor on the same page,--
forty-four! And twelve for Tessie, and eight for this highbinder on
my knee, here! And now we'll have one for little Gertie!"

"Well, she can have number one, anyway!" said the mayor. "You make a
rejooced rate for one family, I understand, Miss Costello?"

"Idon't!" chuckled Alanna, locking her thin little arms about his
neck, and digging her chin into his eye. So he gave her full price,
and she went off with her mother in a state of great content,
between rows and rows of coffins, and cases of plumes, and handles
and rosettes, and designs for monuments.

"Mrs. Church will want some chances, won't she, mother?" she said
suddenly.

"Let Mrs. Church alone, darlin'," advised Mrs. Costello. "She's not
a Catholic, and there's plenty to take chances without her!"

Alanna reluctantly assented; but she need not have worried. Mrs.
Church voluntarily took many chances, and became very enthusiastic
about the desk.

She was a pretty, clever young woman, of whom all the Costellos were
very fond. She lived with a very young husband, and a very new baby,
in a tiny cottage near the big Irish family, and pleased Mrs.
Costello by asking her advice on all domestic matters and taking it.
She made the Costello children welcome at all hours in her tiny,
shining kitchen, or sunny little dining-room. She made them candy
and told them stories. She was a minister's daughter, and wise in
many delightful, girlish, friendly ways.

And in return Mrs. Costello did her many a kindly act, and sent her
almost daily presents in the most natural manner imaginable.

But Mrs. Church made Alanna very unhappy about the raffled desk. It
so chanced that it matched exactly the other furniture in Mrs.
Church's rather bare little drawing-room, and this made her eager to
win it. Alanna, at eight, long familiar with raffles and their ways,
realized what a very small chance Mrs. Church stood of getting the
desk. It distressed her very much to notice that lady's growing
certainty of success.

She took chance after chance. And with every chance she warned
Alanna of the dreadful results of her not winning, and Alanna, with
a worried line between her eyes, protested her helplessness afresh.

"Shewill do it, Dad!" the little girl confided to him one evening,
when she and her book and her pencil were on his knee. "And it
worries me so."

"Oh, I hope she wins it," said Teresa, ardently. "She's not a
Catholic, but we're praying for her. And you know people who aren't
Catholics, Dad, are apt to think that our fairs are pretty--pretty
money-making, you know!"

"And if only she could point to that desk," said Alanna, "and say
that she won it at a Catholic fair."

"Oh, I don't think you ought, do you, Dad?" said Teresa, gravely.
"Do you think she ought, Mommie? That's just like her pouring her
holy water over the kitten. You oughtn't to do those things."

"I ought to," said Alanna, in a whisper that reached only her
father's ear.

"You suit me, whatever you do," said Mayor Costello; "and Mrs.
Church can take her chances with the rest of us."

Mrs. Church seemed to be quite willing to do so. When at last the
great day of the fair came, she was one of the first to reach the
hall, in the morning, to ask Mrs. Costello how she might be of use.

"Now wait a minute, then!" said Mrs. Costello, cordially. She
straightened up, as she spoke, from an inspection of a box of fancy-
work. "We could only get into the hall this hour gone, my dear, and
'twas a sight, after the Native Sons' Banquet last night. It'll be a
miracle if we get things in order for to-night. Father Crowley said
he'd have three carpenters here this morning at nine, without fail;
but not one's come yet. That's the way!"

Alanna came briskly up, and beamed at her. The little girl was
driving about on all sorts of errands for her mother, and had come
in to report.

"Mother, I went home," she said, in a breathless rush, "and told
Alma four extra were coming to lunch, and here are your big
scissors, and I told the boys you wanted them to go out to Uncle
Dan's for greens, they took the buckboard, and I went to Keyser's
for the cheese-cloth, and he had only eighteen yards of pink, but he
thinks Kelley's have more, and there are the tacks, and they don't
keep spool-wire, and the electrician will be here in ten minutes."

"Alanna, you're the pride of me life," said her mother, kissing her.
"That's all now, dearie. Sit down and rest."

"Oh, but I'd rather go round and see things," said Alanna, and off
she went.

The immense hall was filled with the noise of voices, hammers, and
laughter. Groups of distracted women were forming and dissolving
everywhere around chaotic masses of boards and bunting. Whenever a
carpenter started for the door, or entered it, he was waylaid,
bribed, and bullied by the frantic superintendents of the various
booths. Messengers came and went, staggering under masses of
evergreen, carrying screens, rope, suit-cases, baskets, boxes,
Japanese lanterns, freezers, rugs, ladders, and tables.

Alanna found the stage fascinating. Lunch and dinner were to be
served there, for the five days of the fair, and it had been set
with many chairs and tables, fenced with ferns and bamboo. Alanna
was charmed to arrange knives and forks, to unpack oily hams and
sticky cakes, and great bowls of salad, and to store them neatly
away in a green room.

The grand piano had been moved down to the floor. Now and then an
audacious boy or two banged on it for the few moments that it took
his mother's voice or hands to reach him. Little girls gently played
The Carnival of Venice or Echoes of the Ball, with their scared eyes
alert for reproof. And once two of the "big" Sodality girls came up,
assured and laughing and dusty, and boldly performed one of their
convent duets. Some of the tired women in the booths straightened up
and clapped, and called "encore!"

Teresa was not one of these girls. Her instrument was the violin;
moreover, she was busy and absorbed at the Children of Mary's booth,
which by four o'clock began to blossom all over its white-draped
pillars and tables with ribbons and embroidery and tissue paper, and
cushions and aprons and collars, and all sorts of perfumed
prettiness.

The two priests were constantly in evidence, their cassocks and
hands showing unaccustomed dust.

And over all the confusion, Mrs. Costello shone supreme. Her brisk,
big figure, with skirts turned back, and a blue apron still further
protecting them, was everywhere at once; laughter and encouragement
marked her path. She wore a paper of pins on the breast of her silk
dress, she had a tack hammer thrust in her belt. In her apron
pockets were string, and wire, and tacks. A big pair of scissors
hung at her side, and a pencil was thrust through her smooth black
hair. She advised and consulted and directed; even with the priests
it was to be observed that her mild, "Well, Father, it seems to me,"
always won the day. She led the electricians a life of it; she
became the terror of the carpenters' lives.

Where was the young lady that played the violin going to stay? Send
her up to Mrs. Costello's.--Heavens! We were short a tablecloth! Oh,
but Mrs. Costello had just sent Dan home for one.--How on earth
could the Male Quartette from Tower Town find its way to the hall?
Mrs. Costello had promised to tell Mr. C. to send a carriage for
them.

"An' the pretty things you got!" went on the cheering matron.
"You'll clear eight hundred if you'll clear a cent. And now put me
down for a chance or two; don't be scared, Mary Riordan; four or
five! I'm goin' to bring Mr. Costeller over here to-night, and don't
you let him off too easy."

"Did you hear of Alanna's luck?" said Mrs. Costello. "When the
Bishop got here he took her all around the hall with him, and
between this one and that, every last one of her chances is gone.
She couldn't keep her feet on the floor for joy. The lucky girl!
They're waitin' for you, Tess, darlin', with the buckboard. Go home
and lay down awhile before dinner."

"Aren't you lucky!" said Teresa, as she climbed a few minutes later
into the back seat with Jim, and Dan pulled out the whip.

Alanna, swinging her legs, gave a joyful assent. She was too happy
to talk, but the other three had much to say.

"Bishop," said Dan, "and he'll call down from the platform, 'Number
twenty-six wins the desk.' And then Alanna'll look in her book, and
pipe up and say, 'Daniel Ignatius Costello, the handsomest fellow in
the parish, wins the desk.'"

"Twenty-six is Harry Plummer," said Alanna, seriously, looking up
from her chance book, at which they all laughed.

"But take care of that book," warned Teresa, as she climbed down.
"Oh, I will!" responded Alanna, fervently.

And through the next four happy days she did, and took the
precaution of tying it by a stout cord to her arm.

Then on Saturday, the last afternoon, quite late, when her mother
had suggested that she go home with Leo and Jack and Frank and
Gertrude and the nurses, Alanna felt the cord hanging loose against
her hand, and looking down, saw that the book was gone.

She was holding out her arms for her coat when this took place, and
she went cold all over. But she did not move, and Minnie buttoned
her in snugly, and tied the ribbons of her hat with cold, hard
knuckles, without suspecting anything.

Then Alanna disappeared and Mrs. Costello sent the maids and babies
on without her. It was getting dark and cold for the small
Costellos.

But the hour was darker and colder for Alanna. She searched and she
hoped and she prayed in vain. She stood up, after a long hands-and-
knees expedition under the tables where she had been earlier, and
pressed her right hand over her eyes, and said aloud in her misery,
"Oh, I can't have lost it! I can't have. Oh, don't let me have lost
it!"

She went here and there as if propelled by some mechanical force, a
wretched, restless little figure. And when the dreadful moment came
when she must give up searching, she crept in beside her mother in
the carriage, and longed only for some honorable death.

When they all went back at eight o'clock, she recommenced her search
feverishly, with that cruel alternation of hope and despair and
weariness that every one knows. The crowds, the lights, the music,
the laughter, and the noise, and the pervading odor of pop-corn were
not real, when a shabby, brown little book was her whole world, and
she could not find it.

"The drawing will begin," said Alanna, "and the Bishop will call out
the number! And what'll I say? Every one will look at me; and how
can I say I've lost it! Oh, what a baby they'll call me!"

"Father'll pay the money back," she said, in sudden relief. But the
impossibility of that swiftly occurred to her, and she began hunting
again with fresh terror.

"But he can't! How can he? Two hundred names; and I don't know them,
or half of them."

Then she felt the tears coming, and she crept in under some benches,
and cried.

She lay there a long time, listening to the curious hum and buzz
above her. And at last it occurred to her to go to the Bishop, and
tell this old, kind friend the truth.

But she was too late. As she got to her feet, she heard her own name
called from the platform, in the Bishop's voice.

"Where's Alanna Costello? Ask her who has number eighty-three on the
desk. Eighty-three wins the desk! Find little Alanna Costello!"

Alanna had no time for thought. Only one course of action occurred
to her. She cleared her throat.

"Well, did you ever," said Mrs. Costello to the Bishop. She had gone
up to claim a mirror she had won, a mirror with a gold frame, and
lilacs and roses painted lavishly on its surface.

"Gee, I bet Alanna was pleased about the desk!" said Dan in the
carriage.

"Mrs. Church nearly cried," Teresa said. "But where'd Alanna go to?
I couldn't find her until just a few minutes ago, and then she was
so queer!"

"It's my opinion she was dead tired," said her mother. "Look how
sound she's asleep! Carry her up, Frank. I'll keep her in bed in the
morning."

They kept Alanna in bed for many mornings, for her secret weighed on
her soul, and she failed suddenly in color, strength, and appetite.
She grew weak and nervous, and one afternoon, when the Bishop came
to see her, worked herself into such a frenzy that Mrs. Costello
wonderingly consented to her entreaty that he should not come up.

She would not see Mrs. Church, nor go to see the desk in its new
house, nor speak of the fair in any way. But she did ask her mother
who swept out the hall after the fair.

"I did a good deal meself," said Mrs. Costello, dashing one hope to
the ground. Alanna leaned back in her chair, sick with
disappointment.

One afternoon, about a week after the fair, she was brooding over
the fire. The other children were at the matinee, Mrs. Costello was
out, and a violent storm was whirling about the nursery windows.

Presently, Annie, the laundress, put her frowsy head in at the door.
She was a queer, warm-hearted Irish girl; her big arms were still
streaming from the tub, and her apron was wet.

She looked and looked and looked. She shut the book and opened it
again, and looked. She laid it on the table, and walked away from
it, and then came back suddenly, and looked. She laughed over it,
and cried over it, and thought how natural it was, and how wonderful
it was, all in the space of ten blissful minutes.

And then, with returning appetite and color and peace of mind, her
eyes filled with pity for the wretched little girl who had watched
this same sparkling, delightful fire so drearily a few minutes ago.

Her small soul was steeped in gratitude. She crooked her arm and put
her face down on it, and sank to her knees.

"New white dress, is it?" said Mrs. Costello in bland surprise.
"Well, my, my, my! You'll have Dad and me in the poorhouse!"

She had been knitting a pink and white jacket for somebody's baby,
but now she put it into the silk bag on her knee, dropped it on the
floor, and with one generous sweep of her big arms gathered Alanna
into her lap instead. Alanna was delighted to have at last attracted
her mother's whole attention, after some ten minutes of unregarded
whispering in her ear. She settled her thin little person with the
conscious pleasure of a petted cat.

"What do you know about that, Dad?" said Mrs. Costello, absently, as
she stiffened the big bow over Alanna's temple into a more erect
position. "You and Tess could wear your Christmas procession
dresses," she suggested to the little girl.

Teresa, apparently absorbed until this instant in what the young
Costellos never called anything but the "library book," although
that volume changed character and title week after week, now shut it
abruptly, came around the reading-table to her mother's side, and
said in a voice full of pained reminder:

"Mother!Every one will have new white dresses and blue sashes for
Superior's feast!"

"I bet you Superior won't!" said Jim, frivolously, from the picture-
puzzle he and Dan were reconstructing. Alanna laughed joyously, but
Teresa looked shocked.

"Jimmy, don't you be pert about the Sisters," said his mother,
mildly. And suddenly the Mayor's paper was lowered, and he was
looking keenly at his son over his glasses.

"What did you say, Jim?" said he. Jim was instantly smitten scarlet
and dumb, but Mrs. Costello hastily explained that it was but a bit
of boy's nonsense, and dismissed it by introducing the subject of
the new white dresses.

"Well, well, well! There's nothing like having two girls in
society!" said the Mayor, genially, winding one of Teresa's curls
about his fat finger. "What's this for, now? Somebody graduating?"

"It's Mother Superior's Golden Jubilee," explained Teresa, "and
there will be a reunion of 'lumnae, and plays by the girls, you
know, and duets by the big girls, and needlework by the Spanish
girls. And our room and Sister Claudia's is giving a new chapel
window, a dollar a girl, and Sister Ligouri's room is giving the
organ bench."

"A spear, darlin'?" wondered her mother. "What would you give that
to Superior for?" Jim and Dan looked up expectantly, the Mayor's
mouth twitched. Alanna buried her face in her mother's neck, where
she whispered an explanation.

"Well, of course!" said Mrs. Costello, presently, to the company at
large. Her eye held a warning that her oldest sons did not miss. "As
she says, 'tis a ball all covered with islands and maps, Dad. A
globe, that's the other name for it!"

"Ah, yes, a spear, to be sure!" assented the Mayor, mildly, and
Alanna returned to view.

"But the best of the whole programme is the grandchildren's part,"
volunteered Teresa. "You know, Mother, the girls whose mothers went
to Notre Dame are called the 'grandchildren.' Alanna and I are,
there are twenty-two of us in all. And we are going to have a
special march and a special song, and present Superior with a
bouquet!"

"And maybe Teresa's going to present it and say the salutation!"
exulted Alanna.

"No, Marg'ret Hammond will," Teresa corrected her quickly.
"Marg'ret's three months older than me. First they were going to
have me, but Marg'ret's the oldest. And she does it awfully nicely,
doesn't she, Alanna? Sister Celia says it's really the most
important thing of the day. And we all stand round Marg'ret while
she does it. And the best of it all is, it's a surprise for
Superior!"

"Not a surprise like Christmas surprises," amended Alanna,
conscientiously. "Superior sort of knows we are doing something,
because she hears the girls practising, and she sees us going
upstairs to rehearse. But she will p'tend to be surprised."

"She's three years older'n you are, Alanna," said Teresa, briskly,
"and she's in our room! I don't see how you can say she's a friend
of yours! Do you, mother?"

"Well," said Alanna, getting red, "she is. She gave me a rag when I
cut me knee, and one day she lifted the cup down for me when Mary
Deane stuck it up on a high nail, so that none of us could get
drinks, and when Sister Rose said, 'Who is talking?' she said Alanna
Costello wasn't 'cause she's sitting here as quiet as a mouse!'"

"All that sounds very kind and friendly to me," said Mrs. Costello,
soothingly.

"No, sir," said Dan. "These are the Hammonds who live over by the
bridge. There's just two kids, Marg'ret and Joe, and their father.
Joe served the eight o'clock Mass with me one week,--you know, Jim,
the week you were sick."

"That's not the Hammond you had trouble with at the shop, Frank?"
she said.

"Well, I'm thinking maybe it is," her husband admitted. "He's had a
good deal of bad luck one way or another, since he lost his wife."
He turned to Teresa. "You be as nice as you can to little Marg'ret
Hammond, Tess," said he.

"I wonder who the wife was?" said Mrs. Costello. "If this little
girl is a 'grandchild,' I ought to know the mother. Ask her, Tess."

"I don't play with her much, mother. And she's sort of shy," she
began.

"I'll ask her," said Alanna, boldly. "I don't care if she is going
on twelve. She goes up to the chapel every day, and I'll stop her
to-morrow, and ask her! She's always friendly to me."

Mayor Costello had returned to his paper. But a few hours later,
when all the children except Gertrude were settled for the night,
and Gertrude, in a state of milky beatitude, was looking straight
into her mother's face above her with blue eyes heavy with sleep, he
enlightened his wife further concerning the Hammonds.

"He was with me at the shop," said the Mayor, "and I never was
sorrier to let any man go. But it seemed like his wife's death drove
him quite wild. First it was fighting with the other boys, and then
drink, and then complaints here and there and everywhere, and Kelly
wouldn't stand for it. I wish I'd kept him on a bit longer, myself,
what with his having the two children and all. He's got a fine head
on him, and a very good way with people in trouble. Kelly himself
was always sending him to arrange about flowers and carriages and
all. Poor lad! And then came the night he was tipsy, and got locked
in the warehouse--"

"I know," said Mrs. Costello, with a pitying shake of the head, as
she gently adjusted the sleeping Gertrude. "Has he had a job since,
Frank?"

"He was with a piano house," said her husband, uneasily, as he went
slowly on with his preparations for the night. "Two children, has
he? And a boy on the altar. 'Tis hard that the children have to pay
for it."

"Alanna'll find out who the wife was. She never fails me," said Mrs.
Costello, turning from Gertrude's crib with sudden decision in her
voice. "And I'll do something, never fear!"

Alanna did not fail. She came home the next day brimming with the
importance of her fulfilled mission.

"Her mother's name was Harmonica Moore!" announced Alanna, who could
be depended upon for unfailing inaccuracy in the matter of names.
Teresa and the boys burst into joyous laughter, but the information
was close enough for Mrs. Costello.

"Monica Moore!" she exclaimed. "Well, for pity's sake! Of course I
knew her, and a sweet, dear girl she was, too. Stop laughing at
Alanna, all of you, or I'll send you upstairs until Dad gets after
you. Very quiet and shy she was, but the lovely singing voice! There
wasn't a tune in the world she wouldn't lilt to you if you asked
her. Well, the poor child, I wish I'd never lost sight of her." She
pondered a moment." Is the boy still serving Mass at St. Mary's,
Dan?" she said then.

"Sure," said Jim. For Dan was absorbed in the task of restoring
Alanna's ruffled feelings by inserting a lighted match into his
mouth.

"Well, that's good," pursued their mother. "You bring him home to
breakfast after Mass any day this week, Jim. And, Tess, you must
bring the little girl in after school. Tell her I knew her dear
mother." Mrs. Costello's eyes, as she returned placidly to the task
of labelling jars upon shining jars of marmalade, shone with their
most radiant expression.

Marg'ret and Joe Hammond were constant visitors in the big Costello
house after that. Their father was away, looking for work, Mrs.
Costello imagined and feared, and they were living with some vague
"lady across the hall." So the Mayor's wife had free rein, and she
used it. When Marg'ret got one of her shapeless, leaky shoes cut in
the Costello barn, she was promptly presented with shining new ones,
"the way I couldn't let you get a cold and die on your father,
Marg'ret, dear!" said Mrs. Costello. The twins' outgrown suits were
found to fit Joe Hammond to perfection, "and a lucky thing I thought
of it, Joe, before I sent them off to my sister's children in
Chicago!" observed the Mayor's wife. The Mayor himself heaped his
little guests' plates with the choicest of everything on the table,
when the Hammonds stayed to dinner. Marg'ret frequently came home
between Teresa and Alanna to lunch, and when Joe breakfasted after
Mass with Danny and Jim, Mrs. Costello packed his lunch with theirs,
exulting in the chance. The children became fast friends, and indeed
it would have been hard to find better playfellows for the young
Costellos, their mother often thought, than the clever, appreciative
little Hammonds.

Meantime, the rehearsals for Mother Superior's Golden Jubilee
proceeded steadily, and Marg'ret, Teresa, and Alanna could talk of
nothing else. The delightful irregularity of lessons, the enchanting
confusion of rehearsals, the costumes, programme, and decorations
were food for endless chatter. Alanna, because Marg'ret was so
genuinely fond of her, lived in the seventh heaven of bliss,
trotting about with the bigger girls, joining in their plans, and
running their errands. The "grandchildren" were to have a play,
entitled "By Nero's Command," in which both Teresa and Marg'ret
sustained prominent parts, and even Alanna was allotted one line to
speak. It became an ordinary thing, in the Costello house, to hear
the little girl earnestly repeating this line to herself at quiet
moments, "The lions,--oh, the lions!" Teresa and Marg'ret, in their
turn, frequently rehearsed a heroic dialogue which began with the
stately line, uttered by Marg'ret in the person of a Roman princess:
"My slave, why art thou always so happy at thy menial work?"

One day Mrs. Costello called the three girls to her sewing-room,
where a brisk young woman was smoothing lengths of snowy lawn on the
long table.

"These are your dresses, girls," said the matron. "Let Miss Curry
get the len'ths and neck measures. And look, here's the embroidery I
got. Won't that make up pretty? The waists will be all insertion,
pretty near."

"You, too," answered Mrs. Costello in her most matter-of-fact tone.
"You see, you three will be the very centre of the group, and it'll
look very nice, your all being dressed the same--why, Marg'ret,
dear!" she broke off suddenly. For Marg'ret, standing beside her
chair, had dropped her head on Mrs. Costello's shoulder and was
crying.

"I worried so about my dress," said she, shakily, wiping her eyes on
the soft sleeve of Mrs. Costello's shirt-waist; when a great deal of
patting, and much smothering from the arms of Teresa and Alanna had
almost restored her equilibrium, "and Joe worried too! I couldn't
write and bother my father. And only this morning I was thinking
that I might have to write and tell Sister Rose that I couldn't be
in the exhibition, after all!"

"Well, there, now, you silly girl! You see how much good worrying
does," said Mrs. Costello, but her own eyes were wet.

"The worst of it was," said Marg'ret, red-cheeked, but brave, "that
I didn't want any one to think my father wouldn't give it to me. For
you know"--the generous little explanation tugged at Mrs. Costello's
heart--"you know he would if he could!"

"Well, of course he would!" assented that lady, giving the loyal
little daughter a kiss before the delightful business of fitting and
measuring began. The new dresses promised to be the prettiest of
their kind, and harmony and happiness reigned in the sewing-room.

But it was only a day later that Teresa and Alanna returned from
school with faces filled with expressions of utter woe. Indignant,
protesting, tearful, they burst forth the instant they reached their
mother's sympathetic presence with the bitter tale of the day's
happenings. Marg'ret Hammond's father had come home again, it
appeared, and he was awfully, awfully cross with Marg'ret and Joe.
They weren't to come to the Costellos' any more, or he'd whip them.
And Marg'ret had been crying, and they had been crying, and Sister
didn't know what was the matter, and they couldn't tell her, and the
rehearsal was no fun!

While their feeling was still at its height, Dan and Jimmy came in,
equally roused by their enforced estrangement from Joe Hammond. Mrs.
Costello was almost as much distressed as the children, and excited
and mutinous argument held the Costello dinner-table that night. The
Mayor, his wife noticed, paid very close attention to the
conversation, but he did not allude to it until they were alone.

"I suppose that's it, Frank. Perhaps he's been nursing a grudge all
these weeks. But it's cruel hard on the children. From his comin'
back this way, I don't doubt he's out of work, and where Marg'ret'll
get her white dress from now, I don't know!"

"Well, if he don't provide it, Tess'll recite the salutation," said
the Mayor, with a great air of philosophy. But a second later he
added, "You couldn't have it finished up, now, and send it to the
child on the chance?"

His wife shook her head despondently, and for several days went
about with a little worried look in her bright eyes, and a constant
dread of the news that Marg'ret Hammond had dropped out of the
exhibition. Marg'ret was sad, the little girls said, and evidently
missing them as they missed her, but up to the very night of the
dress rehearsal she gave no sign of worry on the subject of a white
dress.

Mrs. Costello had offered her immense parlors for the last rehearsal
of the chief performers in the plays and tableaux, realizing that
even the most obligingly blind of Mother Superiors could not appear
to ignore the gathering of some fifty girls in their gala dresses in
the convent hall, for this purpose. Alanna and Teresa were
gloriously excited over the prospect, and flitted about the empty
rooms on the evening appointed, buzzing like eager bees.

Presently a few of the nuns arrived, escorting a score of little
girls, and briskly ready for an evening of serious work. Then some
of the older girls, carrying their musical instruments, came in
laughing. Laughter and talk began to make the big house hum, the
nuns ruling the confusion, gathering girls into groups, suppressing
the hilarity that would break out over and over again, and anxious
to clear a corner and begin the actual work. A tall girl, leaning on
the piano, scribbled a crude programme, murmuring to the alert-faced
nun beside her as she wrote:

"Yes, Sister, and then the mandolins and guitars; yes, Sister, and
then Mary Cudahy's recitation; yes, Sister. Is that too near
Loretta's song? All right, Sister, the French play can go in
between, and then Loretta. Yes, Sister."

"Of course Marg'ret'll come, Tess,--or has she come?" said Mrs.
Costello, who was hastily clearing a table in the family sitting-
room upstairs, because it was needed for the stage setting. Teresa,
who had just joined her mother, was breathless.

Mrs. Costello carefully transferred to the book-case the lamp she
had just lifted, dusted her hands together, and turned eyes full of
sympathetic interest upon her oldest daughter,--Teresa's tragedies
were very apt to be of the spirit, and had not the sensational
urgency that alarms from the boys or Alanna commanded.

"What more can I do, Tess?" Then, with a grave headshake, "She's
told Sister Rose she has to drop out?"

"Oh, no, mother!" Teresa said distressfully. "It's worse than that!
She's here, and she's rehearsing, and what do you think she's
wearing for an exhibition dress?"

"Well, how would I know, Tess, with you doing nothing but bemoaning
and bewildering me?" asked her mother, with a sort of resigned
despair. "Don't go round and round it, dovey; what is it at all?"

"It's a white dress," said Teresa, desperately, "and of course it's
pretty, and at first I couldn't think where I'd seen it before, and
I don't believe any of the other girls did. But they will! And I
don't know what Sister will say! She's wearing Joe Hammond's
surplice, yes, but she is, mother!--it's as long as a dress, you
know, and with a blue sash, and all! It's one of the lace ones, that
Mrs. Deane gave all the altar-boys a year ago, don't you remember?
Don't you remember she made almost all of them too small?"

"Well, I don't know, Tess." Mrs. Costello was plainly at a loss.
"Whatever could have made her think of it,--the poor child! I'm
afraid it'll make talk," she added after a moment's troubled
silence, "and I don't know what to do! I wish," finished she, half
to herself, "that I could get hold of her father for about one
minute. I'd--"

"Well, I couldn't do anything!" said her mother, with her wholesome
laugh. "Come, Tess," she added briskly, "we'll go down. Don't worry,
dear; we'll find some way out of it for Marg'ret."

She entered the parlors with her usual genial smile a few minutes
later, and the flow of conversation that never failed her.

"Mary, you'd ought always to wear that Greek-lookin' dress," said
Mrs. Costello, en passant. "Sister, if you don't want me in any of
the dances, I'll take meself out of your way! No, indeed, the Mayor
won't be annoyed by anything, girls, so go ahead with your duets,
for he's taken the boys off to the Orpheum an hour ago, the way they
couldn't be at their tricks upsettin' everything!" And presently she
laid her hand on Marg'ret Hammond's shoulder. "Are they workin' you
too hard, Marg'ret?"

Marg'ret's answer was smiling and ready, but Mrs. Costello read more
truthfully the color on the little face, and the distress in the
bright eyes raised to hers, and sighed as she found a big chair and
settled herself contentedly to watch and listen.

Marg'ret was wearing Joe's surplice, there was no doubt of that.
But, Mrs. Costello wondered, how many of the nuns and girls had
noticed it? She looked shrewdly from one group to another, studying
the different faces, and worried herself with the fancy that certain
undertones and quick glances were commenting upon the dress. It was
a relief when Marg'ret slipped out of it, and, with the other girls,
assumed the Greek costume she was to wear in the play. The Mayor's
wife, automatically replacing the drawing string in a cream-colored
toga lavishly trimmed with gold paper-braid, welcomed the little
respite from her close watching.

"By Nero's Command" was presently in full swing, and the room echoed
to stately phrases and glorious sentiments, in the high-pitched
clear voices of the small performers. Several minutes of these made
all the more startling a normal tone, Marg'ret Hammond's everyday
voice, saying sharply in a silence:

The words were followed by a shocked silence. Every one turned to
see the two small girls in the centre of the improvised stage, the
other performers drawing back instinctively. Mrs. Costello caught
her breath, and half rose from her chair. She had heard, as all the
girls knew, that Beatrice did not like Marg'ret, and resented the
prominence that Marg'ret had been given in the play. She guessed,
with a quickening pulse, what Beatrice had said.

Marg'ret, crimson-cheeked, breathing hard, faced the room defiantly.
She was a gallant and pathetic little figure in her blue draperies.
The other child was plainly frightened at the result of the quarrel.

"I said--I said--" Beatrice was frightened, but aggrieved too. "I
said I thought it was wrong to wear a surplice, that was made to
wear on the altar, as an exhibition dress, and Marg'ret said, 'Why?'
and I said because I thought it was--something I wouldn't say, and
Marg'ret said, did I mean stealing, and I said, well, yes, I did,
and then Marg'ret said right out, 'Well, if you think I'm a thief,
why don't you say so?'"

Nobody stirred. The case had reached the open court, and no little
girl present could have given a verdict to save her little soul.

"But--but--" the nun was bewildered, "but whoever did wear a
surplice for an exhibition dress? I never heard of such a thing!"
Something in the silence was suddenly significant. She turned her
gaze from the room, where it had been seeking intelligence from the
other nuns and the older girls, and looked back at the stage.

Marg'ret Hammond had dropped her proud little head, and her eyes
were hidden by the tangle of soft dark hair. Had Sister Rose needed
further evidence, the shocked faces all about would have supplied
it.

But Alanna Costello, who had worked her way from a scandalized crowd
of little girls to Marg'ret's side, and who stood now with her small
face one blaze of indignation, and her small person fairly vibrating
with the violence of her breathing, spoke out suddenly. Her brave
little voice rang through the room.

"Well--well--" stammered Alanna, eagerly, "that's not a bad thing to
do! Me and Marg'ret were both going to do it, weren't we, Marg'ret?
We didn't think it would be bad to wear our own brothers' surplices,
did we, Marg'ret? I was going to ask my mother if we couldn't. Joe's
is too little for him, and Leo's would be just right for me, and
they're white and pretty--" She hesitated a second, her loyal little
hand clasping Marg'ret's tight, her eyes ranging the room bravely.
She met her mother's look, and gained fresh impetus from what she
saw there. "And Mother wouldn't have minded, would you, mother?" she
finished triumphantly.

Every one wheeled to face Mrs. Costello, whose look, as she rose,
was all indulgent.

"Well, Sister, I don't see why they shouldn't," began her
comfortable voice. The tension over the room snapped at the sound of
it like a cut string. "After all," she pursued, now joining the
heart of the group, "a surplice is a thing you make in the house
like any other dress, and you know how girls feel about the things
their brothers wear, especially if they love them! Why," said Mrs.
Costello, with a delightful smile that embraced the room, "there
never were sisters more devoted than Marg'ret and my Alanna!
However"--and now a business-like tone crept in--"however, Sister,
dear, if you or Mother Superior has the slightest objection in the
world, why, that's enough for us all, isn't it, girls? We'll leave
it to you, Sister. You're the one to judge." In the look the two
women exchanged, they reached a perfect understanding.

"I think it's very lovely," said Sister Rose, calmly, "to think of a
little girl so devoted to her brother as Margaret is. I could ask
Superior, of course, Mary," she added to Mrs. Costello, "but I know
she would feel that whatever you decide is quite right. So that's
settled, isn't it, girls?"

"Yes, Sister," said a dozen relieved voices, the speakers glad to
chorus assent whether the situation in the least concerned them or
not. Teresa and some of the other girls had gathered about Marg'ret,
and a soothing pur of conversation surrounded them. Mrs. Costello
lingered for a few satisfied moments, and then returned to her
chair.

"Come now, girls, hurry!" said Sister Rose. "Take your places, and
let this be a lesson to us not to judge too hastily and
uncharitably. Where were we? Oh, yes, we'll go back to where Grace
comes in and says to Teresa, 'Here, even in the Emperor's very
palace, dost dare....' Come, Grace!"

"I knew, if we all prayed about it, your father'd let you!" exulted
Teresa, the following afternoon, when Marg'ret Hammond was about to
run down the wide steps of the Costello house, in the gathering
dusk. The Mayor came into the entrance hall, his coat pocket bulging
with papers, and his silk hat on the back of his head, to find his
wife and daughters bidding the guest good-by. He was
enthusiastically imformed of the happy change of event.

"Father," said Teresa, before fairly freed from his arms and his
kiss, "Marg'ret's father said she could have her white dress, and
Marg'ret came home with us after rehearsal, and we've been having
such fun!"

"And Marg'ret's father sent you a nice message, Frank," said his
wife, significantly.

"Well, that's fine. Your father and I had a good talk to-day,
Marg'ret," said the Mayor, cordially. "I had to be down by the
bridge, and I hunted him up. He'll tell you about it. He's going to
lend me a hand at the shop, the way I won't be so busy. 'Tis an
awful thing when a man loses his wife," he added soberly a moment
later, as they watched the little figure run down the darkening
street.

"But now we're all good friends again, aren't we, mother?" said
Alanna's buoyant little voice. Her mother tipped her face up and
kissed her.